Academy AwardÂ® -winner Robin Williams stars in Universal Pictures' Patch Adams, a comedy with heart based on the true story of a compassionate but outrageous medical student who risks his career by defying the medical profession with his unwavering belief

Academy Award® -winner Robin Williams stars in Universal Pictures'
Patch Adams, a comedy with heart based on the true story
of a compassionate but outrageous medical student who risks his
career by defying the medical profession with his unwavering belief
that laughter is contagious. After such career highlights as Good
Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, The Fisher King,
Mrs. Doubtfire and his Oscar® -winning supporting turn
in last year's Good Will Hunting, the highly versatile
star racks up another milestone as he takes on an inspiring and
colorful real-life character whose reputation for zany, humorous
antics rivals his own.

The director of Patch Adams is Tom Shadyac, whose first
three films were the smash hit comedies Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
and Liar Liar starring Jim Carrey, and The Nutty
Professor starring Eddie Murphy. Once again Shadyac has collaborated
with screenwriter/co-producer Steve Oedekerk. With Patch Adams,
the pair has graduated from the lighthearted merriment of these
earlier efforts to tackle a superstar vehicle with a more realistic,
more dramatic but still comically-fertile story, based on a real-life
character's struggle to help others.

To support his star, Shadyac has enlisted such talented young
actors as Monica Potter (Without Limits, Con Air), newcomer
Daniel London and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Boogie Nights, Happiness)
along with such well-known character actors as Michael Jeter,
Bob Gunton, Harold Gould, Irma P. Hall, Harve Presnell and Richard
Kiley.

Hunter 'Patch' Adams was criticized in his official medical school
record for "excessive happiness" and was once told by
a faculty advisor, "If you want to be a clown, join the circus."

Patch did, in fact, want to be a clown. But he also wanted to
be a physician. Combining vastly different sides of his personality,
he became both. Patch's remarkable story, which includes having
been a patient and a doctor at a mental institute, celebrates
the triumph of spirited individualism and the unending pursuit
of idealism.

Says Robin Williams, "Patch is a strange anomaly, just incredible.
He wears massively bright floral shirts and a tie that occasionally
makes noise. He's an outrageous person but a passionate and dedicated
doctor. He never wanted to be part of the system, he had to create
a new system."

Director Tom Shadyac explains, "Patch is a healer who tries
to find out what makes you tick. What do you like? What excites
you? What's your passion? Fulfilling his patients' fantasies increases
their endorphin levels and their desire to recover."

Inspired to become a doctor while institutionalized for depression
as a teenager, Patch Adams attended the University of Virginia
medical school in the late '60s and early '70s. After graduation,
he formed the Gesundheit Institute, dedicated to a more connected,
personalized approach to medicine. Having initially resisted public
attention, he began receiving a<